The Roman Empire now stretched across Europe and the Middle East, from the borders of Scotland to southern Spain. It included North Africa, western and central Europe, and what is now Israel ...

The team uncovered two large brick structures, stucco walls painted with gold leaf, rare African marble columns ... Nero was a Roman emperor who took the throne in A.D. 54 at the age of 16 ...

and even wild animals for colosseum shows to the empire. Having established its value as a territory, Roman Africa prospered through the turn of the fifth century. Cities were Romanized ...

This story appears in the January/February 2017 issue of National Geographic History magazine. The emperor Hadrian was well known for building monuments across the Roman Empire, a territory that ...